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Read the story and answer the questions.



I drove through a snow-whitened landscape towards the Grand Canyon. It was hard to believe that this was the last week of April. Mists and fog swirled about the road. I could see nothing at the sides and ahead of me except the occasional white smear of oncoming headlights. By the time I reached the entrance to Grand Canyon National Park, and paid $5,000 admission, snow was dropping heavily again, thick white flakes so big that their undersides carried shadows.

The road through the park followed the southern lip of the canyon for thirty miles. Two or three times I stopped and went to the edge to peer hopefully into the silent gloom, knowing that the canyon was out there, just beyond my nose, but I couldn’t see anything. The fog was everywhere — threaded among the trees, adrift on the roadsides, rising off the pavement.

Afterwards I walked heavily towards the visitors’ centre, perhaps 200 yards away, but before I got there I came across a snow-spattered sign announcing a look-out point half a mile along a trail through the wood, and impulsively I went down it, mostly just to get some air. The path was slippery and took a long time to pass over, but on the way the snow stopped falling and the air felt clean and refreshing. Eventually I came to a platform of rocks, marking the edge of the canyon. There was no fence to keep you back from the edge, so I moved cautiously over and looked down, but I could see nothing but grey soup. A middle-aged couple came along and as we stood chatting about what a dispiriting experience this was, a miraculous thing happened. The fog parted. It just silently drew back, like a set of theatre curtains being opened, and suddenly we saw that we were on the edge of a fall of at least a thousand feet.

The scale of the Grand Canyon is almost beyond comprehension. It is ten miles across, a mile deep, 180 miles long. You could set the Empire state Building down in it and still be thousands of feet above it. Indeed you could set the whole of Manhattan inside it and you would still be so high above it that the buses would be like ants and people would be invisible, and not a sound would reach you. The thing that gets you — gets everyone — is the silence. The Grand Canyon just swallows sound. The sense of space and emptiness is overwhelming. Nothing happens out there. Down below you, on the canyon floor, far away, is the thing that carved it: the Colorado River. It is three hundred feet wide, but from the canyon’s lip it looks thin and insignificant. It looks like an old shoelace. Everything is dwarfed by this mighty hole.

1. The author thought

A time was passing very quickly.

В one could not believe anything in April.

С the weather couldn’t be so bad in April.

D the weather is deceptive in April.

2. The oncoming headlights

A came from the Grand Canyon.

В were behind the author as he was driving.

С could be seen nowhere but at both sides of the road.

D were seen by the author on his way to Grand Canyon.

3. The author stopped the car several times

A to find out where to go.

В to enjoy the weather.

С to follow the Canyon.

D to admire the fog.

4. The author had not only a marvelous but also

A a dangerous experience on the edge of the canyon.

В a pleasant company in his car on the way to Grand Canyon.

С an easy-going journey to America.

D a careless adventure.

5. The scale of the Grand Canyon

A was annoying to the author.

В turned out to be insignificant.

С seemed very big to the author.

D terrified everybody.

6. Which of the titles below would best suit the story?

A Experiments in Arizona.

В A magical experience.

С To see or not to see?

D The geography of the Grand Canyon.

7. The sentence “The thing that gets you — gets everyone — is the silence.” means that the silence was

A annoying.

В disappointing.

С impressive.

D gloomy.

 







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